By Allan Fox: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says that he’d like to setup a fight between WBA Super World featherweight champion Nicholas Walters (25-0, 21 KOs) and WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (2-1, 1 KOs) in 2015.
Walters recently obliterated one of Arum’s most popular fighters in Nonito Donaire in stopping him in the 6th round last October in a pretty much one-sided fight. Now that Donaire is out of the unofficial featherweight tournament that Arum has going, it’s now Lomachenko and Walters that need to face each other.
A possible opponent that could face the winner of the Lomachenko-Walters fight is IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich. That would be an excellent fight with Gradovich facing the winner of the Lomachenko vs. Walters fight. There’s also WBC champion Jhonny Gonzalez who could figure into the future, even though he’s not promoted by Top Rank.
“I have always thought Lomachenko is a special talent and one of the greatest fighters around so it would be silly if they didn’t fight sometime next year [with Walters],” Arum said to ESPN.com.
Lomachenko has a fight coming up on November 22nd on the Manny Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri card against #1 WBO Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo (52-1-0, 33 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China. Lomachenko doesn’t want to look past Piriyapinyo, because he’s a solid fighter with an 8-fight winning streak. He’s got punching power, and he could pull an upset if he’s able to outwork Lomachenko the way that Orlando Salido did last March.
Walters looks like the real deal with his punching power, excellent jab, and good size. He could give Lomachenko all he can handle if Arum does set up that fight next year. It would likely be the toughest fight of Lomachenko’s career, because Walters has the kind of power that will keep Lomachenko under duress for as long as the fight lasts.
The good thing is that if Lomachenko can beat Walters, boxing fans would have a pretty good idea who the best fighter in the featherweight division is. Lomachenko obviously would still need to beat Gradovich and Jhonny Gonzalez to prove that he’s the best, but getting Walters out of the way would prove a lot about Lomachenko’s talent.
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